We use cookies to customise content for your subscription and for analytics.If you continue to browse Lexology, we will assume that you are happy to receive all our cookies. For further information please read our Cookie Policy.

We use the term “always connected” to describe the fact that the technology at our fingertips can connect us quickly to others across the room, across the state, or across the world. But when employers say we expect you to always be connected, do you expect that to mean microchipped? Many of us would quickly respond with “absolutely not”. But the CEO of Epicenter in Sweden may disagree. Epicenter has embedded a chip into approximately 150 workers. The chips are approximately the size of a grain of rice and function to open doors, operate printers, and buy products and services with a wave of the hand (where the chips are implanted).

While people tout the convenience of the technology, security and privacy concerns are always on everyone’s minds. While this trend has not made its way onto United States soil in any real sense, employers should consider all aspects of technology’s interplay with their employees and how the data that is collected can be both potentially helpful and harmful—or in some cases downright illegal.